


Women of Revolution: The Pilot

by Corycides



Series: Women of Revolution [6]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite the fact that women are recruited into the militia, we never seem to see any of them. Assuming that General Monroe isn’t keeping them in a pen outside, what are they doing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Women of Revolution: The Pilot

Five men and three women knelt on the packed dirt floor, breathing in the sour rot smell of blood, sweat and death. Sergeant Strausser paced in front of them, his hands clasped behind his back, and recited the Gospel of Monroe in his flat, boring calm accent. Monroe the hero. Monroe the genius. Monroe the savior.

The hero worship would be enough to make Allie vomit if she’d anything in her stomach. 

It had been about 35 hours since she’d had anything to drink, 3 days since they’d slept more than a snatched minute in half-wakeful fugue and 5 days since the last bowl of broth. Lori tried to keep track of it in her head, stitching together the linear narrative to stop from falling into the blurred now of her captors.

Exploding in sudden rage Strausser roared and fell on one of the man, kicking and battering him with boots and fists. Whining weakly the man rolled up like a pillbug, wrapping scarred, bruised arms around his head. After a minute, Strausser collected himself.

He straightened up and smoothed his jacket down fastidiously, the colour fading from his pocked cheeks.

‘Without General Monroe the fields would be soaked in blood, salted and barren with death,’ he started back up where he’d left off. On the floor the man slowly dragged himself back to his knees, shaking from weakness and exhaustion. ‘His leadership, his strategic genius took us through the darkness when the lights went off. Not unscathed, but whole in spirit and stronger. It is Monroe who will take us into the light.’

The recurring motifs were darkness and light, Allie had noticed. There was never any mention of good or evil or attempts to elevate Monroe morally. It was all about his genius and the idea of light equaling survival.

Allie blinked scratchy-sand lids and smirked at the weird turn her thoughts had taken. And her Dad always said her AP class in English comp was never going to be any use?

‘Something funny?’ Strausser asked, striking like a snake. His boot caught Allie in the face before she could cringe for cover, her nose popping like a dry stick. She was so sick with exhaustion the pain barely registered. Blood splashed between her fingers as Strausser beat her viciously. 

Then it was over and she struggled back onto sore knees.

*****

She woke up on clean, white, cotton sheets. Allie stroked them with a bruised, raw-nailed hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept on crisp sheets or in a bed. Even before the militia had grabbed her, she’d been sleeping on the floors of rundown houses or in doorways. Since her Dad died…

She was so foul and grubby, the stink of her pits threatening to turn her stomach, that it felt wrong to be here in this nice clean bed. Didn’t mean she was going to move, not until someone moved her.

‘You’re awake,’ someone said from beside the bed. Allie flinched and sat up, hunching her bony shoulders protectively. 

The lean, smooth-looking man, sun-bleached hair cropped close to his skull, held up his empty hands placatingly. His mouth curled into a faint smile.

‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘No-one is going to hurt you. Allie, right?’

She nodded slowly, eyes darting around anxiously. They shot back to him as he slowly stood up and moved closer to the bed. A callused, scrubbed hand cupped her chin and lifted her face, the sight of it making his lips tighten.

‘Strausser over-stepped, Allie,’ he told her. ‘He’s being punished for this now.’

He got a bottle of water from the table and a handkerchief from his pocket, dampening it and applying to her face. 

‘You’re General Monroe,’ she said, her voice scratchy and sore. It was almost accusing, but her voice wasn’t brave enough for that.

He did the smile again. During all Strausser’s lessons, she’d never imagined his beloved General having a dimple.

‘It’s Sergeant really,’ he said, finishing with her face. ‘But there came a point I was promoting people to higher ranks than I had. Your father was in the army wasn’t he, Allie?’

It didn’t occur to her to wonder how he knew. Strausser said he knew everything. She nodded and he gave her the handkerchief. It was soft and silky under her touch, the white smudge grubby with blood and dirt. She rubbed it over the back of her hands and between her fingers.

‘He was a marine,’ she said.

Monroe leant forwards, eyes intent, and pulled a picture from his jacket pocket. Despite her training Allie’s fingers twitched to grab it. He held it up so she could see it, her standing with her arm around her Dad in front of the copter. 

‘He taught you to fly didn’t he, Allie?’ he asked.

She chewed her upper lip, some tweak in her chest wanting her to be quiet. But when she didn’t answer Monroe grabbed her arm and dug his thumbs in, making her gasp when he hit a bruise. By mistake, she knew that.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m qualified to fly a light plane and a helicopter. I wanted to be a pilot. If I had known this was going to happen, I’d not have wasted my time.’

Monroe let go of her arm and stroked her damp cheek, making her breath stick in her throat and her skin tingle under the dirt. ‘What if it wasn’t?’ he asked

*******

Allie lay in the hot water, toes going pruney and dark hair floating on the sudsy water. Her quarters didn’t get hot water. They got tepid buckets they had to drag up from the kitchen themselves.

Sitting on the bed, yanking on his boots, Monroe gave her a dry look. ‘Sometimes I think you sleep with me just for the hot water, love.’

Instead of answering immediately, Allie checked his expression. Sometimes he wanted a joke, sometimes he needed to hear protestations of loyalty. Twice he’d wanted to hear that she loved him.

He squeezed her wrists until she felt the bones creak and stared down at her with tight lips and cheeks drawn like knives under his skin. She could feel the pulse of him inside her, the weight of him pinning her to the bed.

‘You love me,’ he said. It wasn’t a question, but when she didn’t answer his mouth twisted and his fingers tightened. ‘Don’t you? You won’t betray me, not you.’

‘Never,’ she promised. Sometimes she wished she didn’t love him, sometimes she knew it wasn’t a real feeling. She did though. ‘You saved us, without you-‘

He let go of her arm and grabbed her jaw, thumb digging in. Her heart leaped and thumped in her chest, the rush of adrenaline making her tremble.

‘Not ‘us’, not the militia. You.’

She swallowed and, so slowly, reached up with her free hand to touch his face. 

‘You’re all I have,’ she said. ‘I’m yours.’

That was what he’d wanted to hear. His face relaxed into a smile and he dropped a kiss onto her parted lips, whiskey and a smokey lick of opium filling her breath.

Tonight he was grinning, in a good mood. Allie hooked her arm over the side of the tub and rested her chin on it, smiling crookedly at him.

‘Not just the hot water,’ she said. ‘The meals are what makes it worth my time.’

He laughed and stood up, grabbing his jacket. With a sigh Allie got up, water sloshing, and reached for a towel. Monroe valued her – and not because he was one of the women who shared his bed –but that didn’t mean he’d leave her in his quarters when he wasn’t there. She scrubbed off quickly, ignoring his appreciative look, and scrambled into her uniform, dragging the rough fabric over damp skin.

‘Is it true?’ she asked curiously.

‘What?’

She licked damp, lavender scented water off her lips. ‘That you have a way to turn the power back on, that you’re just waiting for the right time.’

His face went unreadable and her stomach gave a hollow burping twist from nerves. Sometimes it was laughter that would crack that mask, but it could be violence too. Never against Allie, she was usually too careful about annoying him, but there was always a first time.

‘And if it was?’ he asked. ‘What’s the first thing you’d do?’

She took a deep breath and risked a smile. ‘Fly,’ she said. 

He grabbed the back of her neck, fingers twisting through her hair, and she stiffened as he yanked her close. His breath warmed her skin and their noses bumped.

The smile she remembered from waking up in that hospital bed (and she’d seen Monroe do the same things to other, knew it was an act and it didn’t make a difference) lit of his face. He kissed her roughly, mashing her lips and bumping teeth.

‘Wait for the right time, Allie,’ he told her. Still smiling he shook her by the scruff of her neck. ‘Tell people that.’


End file.
